Aussie Rhiannan Iffland locked up the 2019 Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.
The Stari Most– literally translated, ‘The Old Bridge’ – is a rebuilt 16th-century Ottoman span in the city of Mostar, Bosnia. It crosses the river Neretva and connects the two parts of the city and in 2019 it was the venue for the Bosnia leg of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series won by a dead-set Aussie spunk. Rhiannan Iffland is a bit of a legend in the insane, scary-as-a-stuck-throttle world of cliff diving. The 28-year-old NSWelsher has been hurling herself off nose-bleed high places since she were a li’l tacker. She began diving at the age of nine, and before that was an acrobatic trampolinist.
Anyhoo, in 2016 Rhi-Rhi snagged a wildcard entry into the 2016 Mad Bastards – sorry, that should’ve said ‘Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series’ – and had everyone a bit excited when she not only won an event, but finished on the podium at every round.
Gracefall
There were seven rounds in the 2019 series, and the Bosnian was the second-last. The final round was at a place called Bilbao, and we’re guessing it was in Middle Earth or somewhere else from Lord Of The Rings.
We don’t care! The last round didn’t matter, because Iffy tumbled her graceful self from the 27-metre height, avoided the dreadful, gut-splitting, intestine-squirting belly-flop and took both the event win and the championship in Bosnia.
That made it six wins in a row for her this year.
Speaking after her win, Iffland commented: “When I saw that last set of scores, it’s always a nice feeling. I looked around and the crowd was giving me so much energy on the platform; so that helped as well. That was the motivation today definitely, but I tried to come in here with a different mental attitude to the last few years.”
She’s not much of a chatterbox, eh?
Still she’s the champ, and that’s good enough for us.
Yank top sort Eleanor Townsend Smart took out the runner-up’s spot, and Canadian Lysanne Richard plunged into third.
Also Rans
There were blokes in Bosnia as well, and a skinny, musclebound batch of human greyhounds they were, too. But there were no Aussies we could see, so we lost interest finding out what happened there.
Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!
Rhiannan’s the champ!
She must be the one Fleetwood Macca’s wrote the song about.